


the big guns

by kinnoth



Category: The Libertines
Genre: M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-09
Updated: 2009-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinnoth/pseuds/kinnoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter's other brain agrees that the upstairs neighbours need to shove the fuck off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the big guns

**the hair fic**

The thing is: Carlos's hair is too fucking long, they haven't the money to get it cut, and quite frankly, it's pissing Peter off. Of course, Carl's hair has always been on the longish side and it _was_ his idea to spend their last handful of coin this month on fags and food so yeah, Pete hasn't really a leg to stand on about the subject – it's not like he hasn't been looking shaggy lately too, probably hedging more towards "highland cow" at this point than "eccentric artist type who can't be arsed."

But Pete's hair too long and Carlos's are two very different problems. All Peter's does is take years off his face: too big eyes and round cheeks and street urchin scruff – when he goes out, the birds flock around him and coo like he's a six-foot-something fuckin' baby; give him a sturdy stick of moderate length with which to beat them off and he's set (not that he doesn't like the girls, mind, but some of the, well, _heftier_ ones get a wee bit too enthusiastic sometimes). But Carl – Carl just, well, he gets _pretty_ , and then the slats of hair that fall over his cheek and the angle at which he holds his chin stop looking like "defiance" and start creeping into "coy," like he's hiding behind a reason to avert his eyes; softer around his face and feathering like frayed silk under his jaw. And when he goes out, people stare, follow the curling tumble past his collar and, all right, call him a jealous, possessive twat, but Pete doesn't fucking _like_ that.

So really, he can't be blamed when Carl steps out of the shower that day (wet and spilling heat, his hair dripping thick like ink down his neck) and Pete calls clumsily from over upon the couch, "Oi, cut your bleeding hair, you look like a girl," because, come on, he's been provoked for long enough.

Carl freezes where he's standing, towel loose and low and _way too sodding short_ around his hips, and frowns. "It's not that bad," he says, scrubbing it self-consciously back from his face. Peter rolls his eyes long and hard, because Carlos is good looking and he knows it (sometimes), but he's also got _no idea_.

"Yes, you do," Peter persists. "Christ, I've dated proper girls with less hair than you. You're starting to look like a right Goldilocks."

"Rapunzel," Carl mutters, shifting uncomfortably under ambush. "Anyway, we're skint, yeah?"

"I can do it."

Pete's brain does a double take on itself. "Hang on, that's not what we agreed to say," it protests. "You're supposed to offer him that tenner you've got stuffed under your socks. What are you doing?"

Carl looks unconvinced. "When's the last time you've even held a pair of scissors?" he says. "Not that we've even got any, what since what's-his-face nicked our last pair—"

"I got them back and I used to work in a shop. Back home," Pete blurts. Carl blinks at him, bewildered.

"You _what_?"

Pete's brain whirrs furiously on overdrive, wailing, "What? Wait, what?!" at him, but Carl's got an eyebrow arched in his direction, lips pressed together and his hip jutted out from under his towel like a cock on a hilltop.*

Let it never be said that Pete Doherty has ever been at a loss for words in a moment of crisis: "I," he says. "Er. Yeah."

So now he's got Carlos bent head first over the bathroom sink, hands braced to either side and feet spread, looking doubtful. "You're sure about this," he says from beneath his dark, dripping curtain and Pete makes a vague "Hnng" noise that apparently sounds enough like an affirmation that it gets Carl to shut his gob so that Pete can more completely keep his attention on the shift and slink of muscle under the moist damp that still clings like heat to his skin.

Peter may be a miserable, filthy liar but he is careful and can keep his hands remarkably steady when he really needs to (which he really, _really_ needs to).

Slowly, carefully, he peels back the layers of Carl's hair (which fall in strangely ragged lines, now that Pete's noticing it; like Carl had tried to reach around the back of his own head the last time and had hacked at it until it _stayed_ down.) He tries to do that thing he's seen the professionals do, pulling strands taut between his fingers and cutting straight along the line, but it comes out jagged and looking frayed, so he settles with just bunching pieces of it together and lopping the ends off.

Carl shifts. "What are you doing back there, waiting for royal invitation? You done yet?"

"Hang on a minute," Pete says just a little indistinctly but Carl squirms out from under his hands with an agitated, "Let us up," and raises his head.

"Oi, you haven't even started on the front yet," he says, tilting his face left, then right, and scrunching a hand roughly through the back. "Look, it's plenty short enough; just get on with it, yeah?" He doesn't wait for Pete to reply, just bows his head back down again and this time, well, his hair is dryer now after Peter's fussing and Carl's ruffling, and it slips, catching damp at his shoulders and parts in waves over the smooth, round bone at the top of his spine, the long, white arch of his neck -- and Peter wants only just to swoop in and let their ancient, sticky scissors clatter into the sink alongside the tattered bits of hair and the last of Pete's noble fucking restraint; mark that skin, worry it with teeth and tongue and kisses until Carl moans – melts back into his arms like a burst string of imagined promises and lets Pete have him, remake him with pressing, pushing fingers 'til his blood and bone and the whole world knows that this is _his_ , yeah, _fuck_ anyone who thinks they can have a look, scrub a pull, or cop a feel because Carl's got _Peter's_ fingerprints bruised into his hips, _Peter's_ name roughed like cursing into his voice.

"There," Pete says airlessly, stepping back. "All done."

Carl lifts his head from the sink and peers into the stained yellow mirror. "About time," he grumbles, distractedly rooting his fingers through his fringe to find the part, examining his face as he does so, as if a couple inches of hair is going to make or break his _dashing_ good looks, Peter thinks exasperatedly, batting at the stray pieces that stick to the back of Carl's neck.

"Yeah, all right," Carl concludes, crumpling a hand through the back of it again as he pads his way across the bathroom floor. "Might even let you have a go at it next time."

He's making to leave when Peter suddenly mutters, "Hang on," and his fingers reach out, sweep away an errant strand clinging to the flat of Carl's cheekbone. Carl's expression is puzzled but indulgent as he lets Pete move across his face, curl a piece of his fringe around a knuckle and tuck it back behind his ear. Recklessly, impetuously, Peter ducks in and smudges his lips across Carl's forehead.

He's there half a second when Carl shoves at him, laughing, "Piss off," and goes to get dressed.

Pete watches him disappear into the bedroom from in the mirror's reflection, as he stays behind to scrape up the only bits of him Carl will let him have. There is a lingering scent of soap on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> *Er, I apologise for this, but I couldn't get the phrase out of my head, so here it is, in all its nonsensical glory


End file.
